Sunroofs are a popular feature within a motor vehicle to provide, in addition to extra visibility, a potential for greater ventilation. It will be appreciated that the sunroof aperture within a motor vehicle body must be appropriately sealed to the roof liner or head liner of that motor vehicle. Traditionally, the seal to secure the interface between the sunroof aperture and the head liner has been of a flocked flange or a specific injection-moulded plastic material part. These seals act as beading to grip the respective aperture edges and head liner edge and so secure them together.
It will be appreciated that the use of a dedicated flange seal or moulded part adds to component count and potentially to assembly problems. There are inherent geometric and subsequent vibrational problems within a motor vehicle. Thus, the method of securing the head liner about the sunroof aperture must be resilient whilst being relatively flexible for assembly purposes. It will be understood that a headliner within a motor vehicle is a relatively large panel. In such circumstances, specific alignment may be difficult to the desired degree of accuracy. These difficulties will be particularly apparent if apertures within the head liner and the body must be parallel with respect to edges aligned to accommodate a seal.
A typical prior sealing arrangement is depicted in the drawings under the reference title `Prior Art`. It will be noted that a motor vehicle body 1 includes a sunroof aperture edge 2. A roof liner or head liner 3 is covered with a decorative fabric 4 which extends over a return edge of the liner 3. The liner 3, with fabric 4, is secured about the aperture 2 using a bespoke seal element 5 including a tufted or flocked edge 6. It will be appreciated that the liner 3 is retained about the aperture 2 under compression from the sealing element 5. In terms of assembly, locating the liner 3 appropriately relative to the aperture 2 although not difficult may be inconvenient. Furthermore, the necessity of a separate sealing component 5 adds to assembly problems in terms of process staging and component parts count.